


You're a Riot

by Neyiea



Series: misfit(toy)s [1]
Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Arkham Asylum, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-10
Updated: 2019-04-10
Packaged: 2020-01-11 03:23:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18421806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neyiea/pseuds/Neyiea
Summary: With the news on the Tetch Virus wrapping up Jerome finds himself in need of something new to entertain him.As chance would have it, an opportunity presents itself in the form of Bruce Wayne.





	You're a Riot

**Author's Note:**

> I live and breathe for interaction between these two, so I may as well write my own.

The news has been a real riot to watch the past couple of days, even from the rec room’s ancient hulk of a television. Jerome has been front row center for each report, grin stretching from ear to ear as he witnesses the chaos and destruction left behind. Bam, what an impact! He had been awfully curious about whether the Tetch Virus would make its way to Arkham. Wouldn’t that be a laugh; the criminally insane getting power-drunk and getting out. Alas, from the looks of things the antidote has fully circulated around the city and all the fun is now coming to an end.

He flicks off the television, satisfied that at the very least Gotham will bear the scars of this occurrence, just as it will bear the scars he’d left upon it. Someday this city will be so torn up, so haphazardly stitched back together, that it won’t be recognizable.

His eyes flick around the rec room to find a new distraction—whether in a pack of cards or in an inmate to menace matters little to him as long as he’s not bored—and he hears the faint sound of a door being opened. His eyes are drawn to the sound, wondering if it’s one of Arkham’s guards making the rounds or one of _his_.

It’s something even better. Something that makes a phantom pain linger in the stitched skin around his face.

“Well well,” he intones, “what do we have here?”

None other than Bruce Wayne is walking down the long hallway beside the rec room. He’s escorted by, funnily enough, one of the growing number of guards that are under Jerome’s influence. The day suddenly becomes a lot more interesting.

He rises from his seat, motioning for his adoring entourage of lunatics to stay put. He and Bruce have a history that he’s not quite willing to share freely. His little conquistador; more predator than the prey he’d assumed he would be. Just thinking about the maze of mirrors makes him want to start laughing, though that would ruin the element of surprise that he has on his side, since Bruce is very pointedly keeping his gaze forward as he walks with the guard.

Jerome cuts through the room to the crude bit of fencing that traps him inside, following just a few steps behind the pair.

Had Bruce gotten taller already? What a weed.

Bruce comes to an abrupt stop, like he’s noticed something isn’t right. Jerome wants him to turn around, wants to look into the eyes of the teenaged brat who pinned him to the floor and punched his face until the edges began to tear away from the anchoring staples. The eyes that had locked on his as he raised that shard of mirror, so close to doing just what Jerome was craving for him to do; to give in to the dark, to let his violent urges out. It would have been poetic if Jerome had managed to slice his throat with the discarded shard after Bruce had left him lying in the maze, as if he were no longer a threat, and gone running off to his precious butler.

Bruce’s resilience had been an overall disappointment, but his violence? Jerome wouldn’t mind seeing a repeat performance someday, even if it was on him again. 

He’ll have his chance for that, eventually. He’s got a plan in the works after all.

Bruce turns around.

Most of the ‘sane’ people he’s come across nowadays have a difficult time looking right at him, but Bruce stares at him placidly, appearing unbothered. Then again, he had been one of the unlucky few to see Jerome without a face, though really that had been his own fault.

“Jerome,” he greets, a touch too civil. “I’m glad to see that the medical equipment used on you was upgraded from a staple gun.”

He barks out a single sharp laugh, surprised at the unexpected candor, and he eyes the guard standing behind Bruce. The guard obediently takes a few steps back. Bruce doesn’t seem to notice. 

“Brucie boy, you really are way more fun than your dull appearance lets on.”

He thinks of the soft flesh of Bruce’s arm in his hand, the click of the staple gun, the way Bruce’s eyes had bored holes into his own for the first, and the second. He thinks about the myriad of reflections around him, Bruce’s voice seeming to come from everywhere. There had been a chance that that night was a one-off, Bruce forced into fight instead of flight, but it’s starting to look like that isn’t the case.

What’s courage, a voice like an oil slick whispers in his mind.

Grace under pressure, he thinks with a growing smile.

Bruce’s eyes narrow slightly, unsure whether to accept the backhanded compliment at face value. In the end he decides to ignore it. 

“How are you being treated?”

Jerome huffs and rolls his eyes. Back to boring. He’s kind of disappointed. 

“Oh, you know,” he begins flatly, his interest starting to wane, “with antipsychotic meds, sedatives, group therapy, shock therapy, every once in a while they-”

“That wasn’t what I meant,” Bruce cuts in, his tone as sharp as a mirror-shard. Something in Jerome prickles delightedly at the sound of it. Just a minute in his company and the teen was already losing his cool. Bruce takes a steadying breath and lowers his voice, rewording the question.

“How are they treating you?”

“Correct me if I’m wrong.” Jerome threads his fingers through the fencing that separates them and pulls himself closer. Right on the edge of the rec room, close enough to speak to Bruce in whispers if he wanted to. “But are you badly attempting to ask if the people in charge in here,” he leans down to be eye level with the boy behind the fence, “are playing nice?”

Bruce’s expression is unreadable, and he doesn’t take a step back. It’s almost as thrilling as when he’d spoken to Jerome, all but saying outright that he needed an audience to witness his death. Sure, it had obviously been a ploy for more time, and it had worked out in his favor in the end, but Jerome can still remember that happy, warm spark of murderous intent inside of him lighting up. The understanding of, the catering to, his own need for a show exhibited a kind of understanding that he hadn’t expected from the kid who he’d once held hostage with knife to his throat on live television.

“This place doesn’t have the best track record when it comes to abiding by ethical practice,” Bruce tells him in a somber tone. If Jerome didn’t know him any better, if he hadn’t seen something wretched twisting inside of him in the maze of mirrors, he would assume that Bruce was just as dull as his choice of words. “Given both Arkham’s history and how its unlawful dealings have affected me personally, as a consistent donor it is only fair that I myself am able to come see that my money isn’t being used for anything-” his face scrunches up as he searches for a word to describe Indian Hill, “-nefarious.”

Jerome laughs in his face, hears the echo of it behind him, and throws a warning glance over his shoulder to shut his adoring followers up. This was a private conversation, after all. 

When he turns back to Bruce the boy’s eyes are locked on the others who had laughed, possibly already connecting the dots and realizing that Jerome was far from on his own in here. Where else would the Maniax who’d successfully pleaded insanity after murdering and maiming on his special night go? He was a charismatic leader after all, and they were desperate to follow him to whatever hell he was going to stir up. Jerome doesn’t bother to recall who amongst them were part of his original following. It didn’t matter, not when the numbers only kept growing.

Try as the world might to keep Jerome away from his followers. They. Were. Everywhere.

But really, it was rude for Bruce’s attention to drift in the middle of their conversation. 

“So what?” He cuts in, and Bruce’s eyes flick back to him. “You saw me and figured you’d stick around to ask me if,” his voice drops down to a whisper, “the guards corner patients in the halls and in their rooms? If I’ve heard any suspicious, painful screaming at night? Noticed any disappearances?” 

Bruce takes half a step forward. Jerome could probably just barely reach his fingers through the fence and brush them against the woven fabric of his sweater. That might cut this a bit short, though, and this is frankly more entertaining than the news had been. He wonders what Bruce would have been like if he’d been infected with the virus. Violent and glorious, all the hatred and rage building up inside of him unleashed. 

Breathtaking.

“You’ve come to ask if the nurses and orderlies put restraints on us and do whatever they want?” His shoulders start to shake with laughter that he is fighting a losing battle to hold in. “If the psychiatrists find us when the sedation they ordered just starts to kick in so that they can-”

“Jerome,” Bruce cuts in, looking uncomfortable for the first time, “I know this may be too much to ask, but could you please take this seriously?”

“No,” he laughs, alone this time. The look on Bruce’s face is just too much. “I can’t.”

“Jerome, if you have noticed anything, you seem…” Bruce glances past Jerome again, at the patients who appear as if they couldn’t speak up for themselves even if their lives depended on it. “Lucid enough that you’re capable of both perceiving suspicious activity and reporting it.”

But where was the fun in that? Sooner or later the rampant corruption in Arkham was going to end up working in his favor; no way was he offering the punchline before the joke had been set up. 

“What do you care anyways? You think your money is being used for ‘nefarious’ purposes? Stop donating then, idiot,” he drawls. “It’s not like this is a cause that you’re personally invested in seeing through.”

Bruce frowns at him, eyes sparking with anger. It brings back memories of being held down and repeatedly punched in the face by someone who should have only been a weak blue-blood. Who by all accounts shouldn’t even have known how to throw a proper punch. Who had turned the world upside-down just because Jerome had given the order to kill his butler. Jerome chortles and wonders what Bruce might do if he makes him angrier.

“You are personally invested, aren’t you?” His tone drips with pity. “Oh Brucie, you poor dear. Do you spend a lot of time worrying about broken things that you can’t fix? Like Gotham, and Arkham-” Bruce’s hands are clenching at his sides. “-and the _things_ in here,” he adds, sotto voice. 

Bruce takes another half step towards him, like Jerome is a magnet that he just can’t escape the pull of. His eyes are dark as he stares at Jerome like he’s trying to look right through him.

“You’re not a thing, no one here is. You’re people, just people.” Jerome fights the urge to correct him. He, at least, is not just a person anymore. A monster. A messiah. An ideology. But he kind of wants to see where Bruce is going with this. He smiles invitingly, which is enough to make most of the people he comes in contact with second-guess themselves. Bruce doesn’t falter. “And while I’m sure there’s a lot of terminology that can be used to describe you, broken isn’t a word that I would define you by.”

Jerome’s fingers curl tighter in the fencing.

“You’re being awfully genial,” he comments in a mock-thoughtful voice, “considering what happened when we last crossed paths. How long ago was that again? The days really start blurring together in here.”

“This isn’t about me.”

“Liar,” Jerome scolds softly. “This is about you wanting to feel like you’ve got the moral high-ground by trying to fix what you can’t. Have you checked on the work of your donations before?” Unlikely, if he was still actually making donations. He lowers his voice, his tone a mixture of amusement and accusation, “Or did something happen recently to make you feel _guilty_?”

Bruce leans closer, staring unblinking into Jerome’s eyes. There are barely a few inches separating them. It’s just like he had been when Jerome was lifting the knife over his head at Wayne Manor, raring to finally get Bruce’s blood on his hands. Fearless. Unflinching. 

Bruce is a predator that hasn’t fully grown into his teeth and claws yet. A predator that, through various misfortunes, was mistakenly raised by prey. 

“You need help, Jerome.”

Avoiding the question. He does feel guilty about something. 

“Maybe,” he agrees, “since I managed to come back to life but couldn’t even kill you.”

Bruce takes a half-step back, and his expression gains a weary edge that sparks Jerome’s ravenous curiosity. “People attempting to murder me and failing after being revived is starting to look like an unfortunate theme in my life.”

Hang on. Someone else had—

Theo fucking Galavan. Jerome wonders what the chances are that he’ll come back again so that he can put him into the ground himself.

“You said you wanted to kill me to ‘clear the decks’,” Bruce talks about his close call with death like it’s tritely familiar, instead of what should have been one of the most remarkably terrifying moments of his life. Jerome is a bit insulted, to be honest. “Since it was one of the last things you remembered of your old life.”

“And?” He crosses his arms and leans sideways against the fencing. It distorts under his weight. “Get to the point.”

Bruce doesn’t fully turn to look at him, but his eyes track Jerome’s restless movements faithfully. “And it wasn’t even your idea to kill me in the first place.”

“So?”

“So,” his face is a mask of calm that Jerome wants to dig his fingers into and rip off, “don’t take the failure too personally.”

And, just like that, he turns and walks away without a word of goodbye. How catty.

Jerome slouches against the fencing, warping it further, and watches Bruce and the guard make their way through a doorway and slip out of sight. He chuckles to himself.

“Way more fun than you look.”


End file.
